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A review by bumble_abi
The Very Nice Box by Eve Gleichman, Laura Blackett
emotional
funny
lighthearted
reflective
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
Ava works as an engineer at STÄDA, an IKEA-like corporation, designing storage boxes. Her life is square and meticulous, as she tiptoes around the hole left by a car accident that killed both her parents and her fiancé. But her careful compartmentalizing is shaken up when the company's new Head of Product, Mat, bursts into the business and into her life, and despite herself she can't help but fall for his buzzwordy charms.
This book really surprised me. It is a tender examination of grief, a shrewd workplace satire, a takedown of toxic masculinity, and somehow sort of a thriller, all while making me laugh out loud several times. Ava is plausibly bisexual, and this book's comments on the dilemma of being attracted to men while needing to sort of simplify yourself to make sense to them really hit home for me (this is obviously a generalisation but accurate in my experience).
The observation that so much of corporate success is repackaging basic icebreakers and saying unfamiliar combinations of words confidently feels so true to life even as it's satirised, and I enjoyed recognising facets of my own experience of corporate life in here. It's well-plotted and pacy and I did not expect myself to tear through it in the way I did. There was a twist I predicted, but it was executed well and I think I'd have been disappointed if the book hadn't gone there.
This is the first time I've read a book by two writers where it's not split into two distinct voices (e.g. two character points-of-view). It's not possible to tell who wrote what, and I think it makes for an impressive debut, because there's some built-in quality control in that collaborative process, before the manuscript even gets to an editor. Why don't more people write books like this?
This book really surprised me. It is a tender examination of grief, a shrewd workplace satire, a takedown of toxic masculinity, and somehow sort of a thriller, all while making me laugh out loud several times. Ava is plausibly bisexual, and this book's comments on the dilemma of being attracted to men while needing to sort of simplify yourself to make sense to them really hit home for me (this is obviously a generalisation but accurate in my experience).
The observation that so much of corporate success is repackaging basic icebreakers and saying unfamiliar combinations of words confidently feels so true to life even as it's satirised, and I enjoyed recognising facets of my own experience of corporate life in here. It's well-plotted and pacy and I did not expect myself to tear through it in the way I did. There was a twist I predicted, but it was executed well and I think I'd have been disappointed if the book hadn't gone there.
This is the first time I've read a book by two writers where it's not split into two distinct voices (e.g. two character points-of-view). It's not possible to tell who wrote what, and I think it makes for an impressive debut, because there's some built-in quality control in that collaborative process, before the manuscript even gets to an editor. Why don't more people write books like this?